Syracuse at Virginia: Hype, prices spike before visit by Orange

Virginia's Malcolm Brogdon knows Saturday's game against No. 4 Syracuse is enormous, but he'd really prefer for it to be perceived as just a nice little late-winter meeting against a worthy opponent.

Good luck selling that promo to a U.Va. fan base that has already gone off-the-rails bonkers in anticipation of the game — and rightfully so.

It isn't often your team gets to play for an outright Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season championship against a perennial national power. If No. 12 U.Va. (24-5 overall, 15-1 ACC) wins, it'll deliver the Cavaliers just their second outright ACC regular-season title, and their first since the Ralph Sampson-led Cavaliers won it in 1981.

"It's huge," said Brogdon, who is averaging 12.4 points and 5.7 rebounds per game and has helped lead U.Va. on its 12-game winning streak. "Of course, as a player, you try to block out the distractions and block out the publicity of the game, because I really feel like it's not about that. At the end of the day, it's just another basketball game. We've got to go in and play our game, regardless of the results, and try to impose our will from the beginning."

U.Va. forward Akil Mitchell (seven points and 6.9 rebounds per game) doesn't subscribe to Brogdon's point of view. As one of three seniors who will be playing in the final home game of their careers, along with guards Joe Harris (11.5 points per game; 42.9 percent shooting on 3-pointers) and Thomas Rogers, Mitchell has a hard time envisioning a bigger set of circumstances.

As expected, acquiring secondary-market tickets to the game in John Paul Jones Arena requires deep pockets.

SeatGeek, one of those secondary-market ticket brokers, revealed Thursday the average ticket price has more than quadrupled in the past month, going from $79 on Jan. 26 to $339, thus making it more expensive than the cost of a U.Va. full-price season-ticket package and the most expensive ticket the broker ever has recorded in the state of Virginia.

Syracuse (26-2, 13-2) will try to snap U.Va.'s 17-game home winning streak against conference opponents. U.Va. is guaranteed to be the No. 1 or 2 seed in the ACC tournament – it's just a matter of which one.

After starting the season 25-0, Syracuse has lost two of its last three games, but it still has played with a level of consistency behind coach Jim Boeheim, forward C.J. Fair (16.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game) and guards Trevor Cooney (12.8 points per game; 40.3 percent from 3-point range) and Tyler Ennis (12 points per game; 5.6 assists and 2.1 steals per game – ACC bests in both categories).

Syracuse's trademark 2-3 zone has paved the way to success for the Orange this season. It's a defense that has gotten U.Va.'s full attention in preparation.

"I think we've all seen them on ESPN a couple times," Mitchell said. "Whether it was against Duke or Boston College, we watched a couple games. We know all about their zone, all about their players. It's really just a matter of figuring out what we're going to do against their zone, how we're going to defend their actions."

Bennett was impressed by Syracuse's ability to create turnovers and rebound, but the overall talent level is what stood out the most.

"They have a lot of weapons," said Bennett, whose team has employed his pack-line defensive approach to lead the nation in scoring defense (54.7 points per game). "They're well-coached. I mean, there's a reason why they have the record they have and how successful Coach Boeheim has been. You have to play at a very high level, not perfect, but at a very high level to compete with a team like that.

"To be in this spot is terrific. We'll be in our place and we'll have to do certain things well, but the formula doesn't change for us. Just because there's so much excitement around it, we're not going to be different. We're just going to have to be as good as we can."

As for jitters going into the game, Harris doesn't think it'll be anything he and his teammates will have to handle. He's waited a long time for an opportunity like this one.

"You look at it from a bigger perspective," Harris said. "This is what we wanted when we first got here as (freshmen). If we could've looked ahead when we first got here and said, 'Our fourth year, our last (home) game is going to be for an ACC championship against a top-five team,' I think we would definitely take that. We would be excited about that. That's something we would look forward to. Now that it's actually here, I think you can't really script it any better."